Photo Intensive Fall Decorating

For me, October 1st marks the official start of Fall.  It's also the day that I begin decorating for Halloween.

The month of October is my favorite month of the year.  Wanna know why?  It has my Sis-In-Law's birthday (Today - Happy Birthday Jennifer!), my parents anniversary (Oct 15th), my anniversary (Oct. 19th), my birthday (the 26th) and my favorite holiday in the whole world Halloween!

So this morning, out came the decorations!

I dressed my mantle (which has since had a burlap runner added all in it  You can see it in a pic below):

Look how cute these little guys from the mantle are:

The Youngest dressed himself:

He insisted on being photographed in his bad guy hero pose.


Here's another view of the mantle complete with coffee table:

I can't tell you how glad I will be when the striped wallpaper is gone.  Coming soon to a blog near you!  It's on the to do list, trust.


And I just realized you've never seen the living room from this view:

That's more burlap on the coffee table.  I intentionally left it all wrinkly.  I love the effect.

Guests in the downstairs powder room will see this:

In the the Hall:

In the Breakfast Nook you'll find this:

The tablecloth is actually a throw that was from Pier One.  It makes an awesome Autumn tablecloth, though when the kids sit down to eat it's moved out of the way.  They can't be trusted to eat neatly.

Check out the dog in costume (purchased at a yard sale for 5 bucks):

My family thinks he's weird, but I find him adorable.

And the springy things hanging from the chandelier:

Even the sink area gets the Halloween treatment:

 Most of these decorations were purchased end of season from Joann's, The Dollar Tree and thrift stores.  Can you tell that I just love Halloween?

Spinning My Wheels

Which wheels?  The Mommy van kind? no.   The spinning wheel kind?  again, no.  The lace project kind?  Why, how did you guess?

On Sunday I received the pattern for a lovely test knit.  The designer requested that the item be completed in one week and asked for fast knitters.  Now, I pride myself on being a quick knitter, and you can probably guess that this was where things started to go wrong.  The whole pride goeth before a fall kinda thing, you know.  I totally jinxed myself. 

The next thing to go wrong (because this is me we're talking about here and there's always another thing to go wrong) was getting confused about the pattern, three times.  This is not the fault of the pattern or designer, I will completely own up to that.  I messed up.  Short and simple. 

I recovered and moved along.  I actually caught up to where the other knitters were in the charts. Woohoo!  But wait, congratulations are not in order here and this time, it's not my fault.  I'm fully aware that this is going to sound immature and like I'm making up excuses, but it's true, I swear. 

The dog did it.

The almost completely blind and almost completely deaf 18 year old dog walked between my project and my ball of yarn.  I was in another part of the house making a cup of tea.  Said dog was clueless as to the fact that she had done this, so she continued on her plodding little way, pulling the yarn.  Could it have pulled from the ball?  Yes.  Did it?  Oh no. 

Stitch, by small stitch, the yarn came away from the needles.  Drop, drop, drop.  Approximately 10 stitches fell off the needle and began running in many different directions.  Have you ever been working on a lace project and have this happen?  For me, there was no recovery.  Too much of the lace became unraveled for me to even consider getting out the crochet needle and patching it up.  Meanwhile, the dog walked on, with me yelling all the while.  She never heard a thing. 

I caught up with her eventually and untangled her and then sat down and stared at what was left of my pretty lace.  Believe it or not, I was very calm at this point for a couple of reasons:  One, the dog didn't know she was doing this and is so pitiful already that it's difficult to yell at the little geriatric.  Two, I didn't do it.  If I had done this, the yarn would probably be lying in the bottom of a very deep, dark hole from the stress of it all.

The stretchy crocheted cast-on, with which I have already become intimately familiar due to previous mistakes, have become acquainted once again.  I'm on row three now for the fifth time.

Now how am I ever going to explain this to the poor designer who needs it in just a couple of days?

Lovin' Knit Yarn Shop

Saturday, on a hunt for some fingering weight yarn (I'm test knitting a new shawlette pattern), I went to a local yarn store for the first time.  It's called Lovin' Knit Yarn Shop and Studio.

I can't say enough good things about this shop.  The owner and (Pat) and one of her employees (Cindy) were wonderfully helpful and incredibly welcoming.  They had a great selection of yarns and their shop is very well laid out.  They even encourage crocheters and aren't a bit biased against them.  That's such a nice thing to see in a lys.  Most of the lys' that I've seen tend to cater only to the knitter and ignore those that crochet. 

Plus, to make this visit even better, they were having a sale on Noro (buy one, get one half off) and I just couldn't pass it up.  I snagged some Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic sock yarn in the most beautiful greens ever and two skeins of Noro Silk Garden at the sale price. 

With all this shop has going for it, I'll definitely be going back soon!

Fireplace DIY Skillz

Yesterday I showed you the pics from my Fireplace insert painting project.  Today I want to show you the before and after pics.

I forgot to take an official "before" shot of how the insert looked before I began this project.  Not that that will be a surprise to anyone here of course.  However, I do have a pic taken at a birthday party last year that shows it very nicely.  Just ignore the party decorations:

Check out how it looks now:

I love the new look (even if the lighting is poor!) Click to see the enlarged version of the pic.


Obviously I have not updated the mantle in a while.  That's on my next week's to do list, promise.

Fire Place DIY

Since we moved into this house seven years ago, I've hated the way my fireplace insert looks.  It's a big ugly nasty colored brass.  Not a pretty brass, an ugly one.   Yesterday I decided to do something about it.

I had gotten out the steamer cleaner to clean the bricks on the fireplace and had to take the insert out anyway to do this.  This is the first time that I've had it pulled out and I decided that now is the perfect time to fix the color.

I took a trip to Home Depot this morning and purchased some High Heat spray paint for about $5.  DISCLAIMER: Please, if you do this kind of project, make sure you buy High Heat paint, not the regular spray paint.  I will not be responsible for your burning your house down if you don't buy the proper paint!

Here is the before:

And here is the insert after taping up the windows and applying the first coat of paint:

I picked a flat black paint because I want it to disappear in the fireplace.  It's had enough attention over the years, it doesn't need more.  It's there to insulate the house when the fireplace is not in use and that's all it should be doing, not taking away from the beauty of it's surroundings.

Tomorrow I'll show you how pretty it's going to look in the fire place!

The Goody Box Incentive

Years ago I created a thing of beauty.  It's more beautiful in concept than reality.  In reality it's just a plain cardboard box.  Nothing special to look at.  It sits in the shelf in our garage and it looks just like every other box on a shelf in the garage.

The objects inside are not beautiful either.  It's the motivation that those objects provide that is a thing of beauty.  I call it, The Goody Box.

The Goody Box is filled with little toys, Pez candy dispensers, items found at consignment or yard sales, puzzles, etc.  Nothing fancy or expensive. 

It began as potty training motivation.  The Eldest was into Thomas trains back then, so I created a train track on a chart.  Every time he went he got a sticker.  Every fifth track had a star on it.  When he got to a star, he got a prize out of The Goody Box.  Worked like a charm, for him at least.  His brother is not motivated like that, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.

After a few years it morphed,  no longer used as potty training motivation, but for incentive to do chores.  This has been a truly wonderful invention and one that I'm quite proud of.  We use it for any chores that are not on their normal chores list.  The normal chores are done in order to attain a small weekly allowance.  These chores are not negotiable and are the same from week to week.  The Goody Box chores are outside of the normal realm of chores. 

Today after school both boys suddenly came to me begging for extra chores to do.   The operational word in that sentence is begging.  The Youngest dusted for me (at least every where that he could reach.) The Eldest asked to clean the toilets.  "Heck yeah!", I said, "Get to it".  What Mom in her right mind wouldn't say that? 

The Youngest chose a Toy Story Slinky Dog Pez for his collection.  The Eldest picked a Bionicle that I had bought at a children's consignment sale.  Both items cost me a dollar each. 

The Goody Box, truly an item of beauty in my home.

Space Shuttle Progress

The Eldest and I worked on his space shuttle project again last night.  It's really starting to look like a shuttle, albeit a rough recycled one.  He was such a trooper about it.  He felt horrible yesterday, but was perfectly willing to get down on the floor with tape, newspaper and cardboard and get to working.  He was pretty funny about measuring the project to make sure it kept it's 1/40th scale.  He's very technically oriented and needs a creative nudge now and then, but he's doing very well on this project.

There are a couple of things that we're worried about.  The cargo bay is long and narrow and has the tendency to warp out of shape.  We used tons of cardboard and tape to reinforce it out of worry that the wet newspaper that will be applied would make it go all wonky on us.  We also had a little difficulty making the back wing stabilize, but finally came up with a solution that worked.

His father and I are really glad this thing is going to be paper mache-d and painted.   I don't think it would look to great for the kid to bring in a project made from beer boxes, do you?

More Sickness and A Good Knitting Mistake

Yet more sickness has struck at our house.  Now the Eldest has come down with a cold and has coughed himself silly all day long.  I loaded him up with cough syrup and cough drops and sent him off to school.  It's a catch-22 situation.  If he doesn't have a fever, you send him to school.  So then, he's coughing in class, infecting the other kids and disrupting the class.  Yet if he's kept home, the school police will fuss at you for him not attending.

Evidently at one point the coughing was so bad (he had run out of cough drops) that she sent him to beg for more cough drops at the office.  Which of course sent the ladies in the office scrambling for their purses to find the poor kid something to control the coughing.  Not once did I get a call by the way for more of the drops.  I'm sending a whole bag tomorrow.  Poor kid.

In knitting news, I have been knitting and got a lot done on my secret project sweater, about six inches worth during the Auburn/Clemson game (my team won).  I hate that I can't show the progress on this and how cool it's turning out, but if I want to publish it somewhere, it can't be shown.   At one point, I caught myself making a mistake in my cable chart.  It was a big uh oh moment, but then I decided that I liked it the way the cable had turned out even better and I've now changed the directions to match.  Don't you just love (in an oxymoronic kind of way) the good mistakes that knitting brings you?  For myself, I'm just thrilled to not be ripping the darn thing out again.

Happy Birthday Eldest!

Today is my oldest baby's tenth birthday!  Happy Birthday Eldest!

 

The Youngest is having a tough time with his brother getting the spotlight today.  He wanted to know why The Eldest was keeping him from having a birthday.  He hasn't quite gotten the concept of each person having his own special day.  He's also mad as all get out that I put all those minifigs on the cake.  He'll get over it.

We're foregoing a big party this year.  The Eldest has chosen instead to go to a video arcade place with one special friend instead.  Yay!  No party stress for Mom!  We opened presents first thing this morning and both boys were tickled to death to get birthday cake for breakfast!

Lego Birthday Cake Incident

"Creativity is the ability to hide horrible wrongs artistically."  - Shea

I stand by my statement.  This has served me well through many projects that had serious flaws and my son's 10th Birthday cake is no exception.  This was supposed to be a ridiculously simple cake.  Now why is it that I get the words "simple" and "difficult" backwards so often?  Difficult cakes?  No problem.  Simple cakes?  I totally screw them up.

Take the Lego cake for example.  Simple concept, should have been easy.  I took a 9 x 13" cake and chopped off one side.  I took a small cup and made "biscuits"  in the chopped off side and then cut them in two so that I would have two circles from each.  I then frosted the cake, placed the circles on top, then frosted those.  See, sounds simple doesn't it?

Well.  The cake was crumbly and mixed with the frosting.  I couldn't get the frosting to go around the circles right.  Some of the circles are lopsided.  D@mn.   To be honest, the cake looked like a torso with eight breasts.  Unless you're a hormone raging teen boy, it's very unappealing.  Oh, and the Youngest made a hole in the side with his fingers when I wasn't looking and that didn't help matters either.   This is officially the worst birthday cake that I've made so far.

So what's a gal to do when something like this happens?  Disguise the mess!

I raided the boys' Lego bucket for embellishments.  I found quarter round red pieces, long red pieces, round red wheel bases, eight different colorful minifigs and three antennae thingies.  Wanna see how it turned out?

The 10 candles hide the hole made by little fingers pretty well, don't they?

Notice the strategic uses of the quarter round pieces  and center wheels bases to define the circles a bit more.

The long red pieces disguise some uneven edges and the baywatch babe coordinates well with the frosting.

 

The Mime and the Skull Guy near each other just crack me up.  You'll also see some yellow things sticking up in the center of the cake.  That was more to aggravate The Eldest than anything else.  It drives him nuts that those are some of my favorites pieces to build with.  I put those yellow antennae thingies in almost all my creations.  So of course, it had to be in the cake too! 

I'm here to tell you that there's nothing like making a project really busy in order to hide all your sins!

Paper Mache

Every year at The Eldest's school, the entire school is required to do a media center reading project.  This year The Eldest chose Space as his theme.  They read books about it and then they have to do something creative.  He chose to do a paper-mache model of the space shuttle.   He plans on having a cargo bay with working doors on it.

This isn't going to be a tiny model either.  It's being built to 1/40th the size of the shuttle, so it will be approximately 3 feet long and 2 feet wide.  It's going to take a lot of glue and newspaper I think.

We started brainstorming and sketching and then broke out the newspaper and masking tape to start making the form:

You can see how large this is going to be when we back up some and look again:

 

This is as far as he got with it.  He still has to finish the back of the cargo bay and add the back and wings, so it has a way to go before we can start layering the newspaper and glue.  Then we're going to install (somehow) a robotic arm (fake of course, we're not ready to tackle robotics yet) that can hold a model of a piece of the International Space Station.

I'm trying to back off this project as much as possible so that he can do the bulk of the work.  I'm mainly serving as artistic director,extra hands and photographer.  I'll give you an update next week after we tackle the next part of the shuttle. 

Skull Pops!

 Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while knows that two things never go out of style in this house of boys:  Skulls and Flames.  If you have either of those, you're cool for life.  So how could I turn down some awesome silicone skull ice trays I found a few days ago at the Dollar Tree?

 I've been having so much fun brainstorming on how we could use them.  Obviously, the first thing we did was to make ice, but that didn't go over so well.  While he liked the ice, The Youngest became really mad when the skulls melted.  So, on to project #2:

Skull Pops!

What you'll need:

Almond Bark Candy - both white and chocolate
Popsicle sticks
Microwave
Skull Ice Tray

1.  Melt almond bark candy (vanilla) in the microwave according to directions and pour it into one side of the tray:

 I sprinkled some Cocoa into the trays to help them release and also so that the skull faces would show up better against the white candy.  When I do this again, I'll leave out the cocoa since I wasn't really pleased with how it turned out.  Next, melt the chocolate almond bark candy and pour it into the other side.

2.  Let cool and then pop the skulls out of the tray:

  2.  Melt a little more of the almond bark and use it as a glue on one of the white skulls and one of the chocolate.  Place a popsicle stick in between them and then stick them together like so:

Some of my "glue" oozed out of the last one a little, but nobody around here minded in the least, it was just more candy to be consumed.  You can easily wipe the excess away.

3.  Let these cool and then devour:

You'll notice that there's one missing.  The Youngest grabbed one and ran before I could snap a pic of them all together.

These will be perfect for a Halloween (or for my household a whenever) treat!

RIP, RIP, RIP

RIP, RIP, RIPPING along and not the rest in peace kind of ripping either.  I'm talking the ripping of stitches, many, many stitches.   Over and over again. 

Problem the First:  I decided to make my first officially designed sweater as complicated as frigging possible.   Cable panel, check.  Waist shaping, check.  Square neck, check.  Six sizes so far, check.  

Problem the Second:  Math are hard!  Ya know, maybe, just maybe, if someone (oh, I don't know say, a teacher maybe) had told me that there were real world practical applications for algebra, I just might have paid some freakin' attention the first time around!  Who knew that I would be using algebra in designing sweaters 24 years later?  If you do the math, you'll find out when I was in tenth grade.  I'm not just going to tell you the year though dammit. If I have to have a math headache, then the more the merrier.  I say that with love of course.

Problem the Third:  Gauge hates me.  It bit me.  Twice.  The second time resulted in six freakin' inches extra.  I put it on the dress makers dummy to look at my knitted sample and the damn thing fell off!  See, the gauge wasn't 4 stitches per inch, it was really 4.25 per inch.  That tiny quarter of a stitch makes a really big difference and don't let anybody tell you it doesn't.

Problem the Fourth:  I'm making every design blunder in the book.  It's annoying, but by God, I guess I'll learn this stuff the hard way huh?  The hard way always makes this stuff stick in my brain easier anyway.

Problem the Fifth:  Relates to Problem the Second.  I found a place online that could figure this whole algebra thing out.  However, not wanting the easy way out, I decided to reverse engineer their results (so that I could build my excel spreadsheet properly) in order to figure out how to really do this math.  My brain hurts now, thank you.  I did figure it out though.

Now, Go back and after each of these Five Problems, place the the words:  Great, just great, now I have to rip it back again.

Yeah, I might have miss-titled the name of this post.  It should read: RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP.  At this rate, my yarn will fall apart and I'll have nothing to knit my sweater with.

What A Bully

Day four of the sick child.  Still has a fever.  Has quit vomiting, but now is a snot monster.  He's nasty and has an attitude.  God help me.

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You know those playground bullies, the ones that steal your milk money?  Yeah, we've got one of those around here:

This was taken right before he ran her off from the food.  He's also the one that blocks the entrance to the potty when she has to go.  Oh, and he blocks it when she's trying to get out of the box too.  What a bully.

Save Some, Earn Some

 Not much going on so far this week.  The Youngest has been sick and has managed to taint me with his little germs and now I feel like dog dirt.  Crafty stuff will resume shortly, I promise.  Until then, Check these out:

 Save Some Dough:

1.  Here's an awesome deal over at Amazon that will be perfect for gearing up for Christmas: Amazon Mom

What you get:  3 Months of Amazon Prime Free!  You get free two day shipping which is totally awesome.  And, for every $25 you spend in the Amazon Baby Store, you get another month of free shipping.  There is also also a great discount: 30% off select diapers and wipes. 

You don't have to be a Mom necessarily to qualify, just a caregiver or someone out to help a new parent.  Sweet.

Earn Free Stuff:

 2.  Swagbucks:  You've heard me mention this one before.  I absolutely adore this site for earning Amazon Gift Cards.  So far I've earned around $200.00 to use over at Amazon.  Christmas will be very good this year for my boys!  I'll be combining my gift cards and using them with the free Amazon Prime shipping mentioned above.  I know a few of you have joined through me and I'm curious, how well has Swagbucks worked for you?

3.  Irazoo:  This is similar to Swagbucks, but you only search and win, there are no special offers to do.  It's much simpler, so if you don't want to do all the extra stuff on Swagbucks to earn the free Amazon gift cards, this is the place for you.  They do give out codes like Swagbucks does (they're called Treasure codes on Irazoo) and you need to be on their Facebook page to get them. 

Birthday Boy

Tomorrow is my baby brother's birthday!  I just thought I'd give a shout out to the 35 year old young man.  :)

Here's a pic of one of his birthdays "way back when."  Notice the cake that my mother made and decorated:

All together now!  "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

A Use for Peach Pits

Remember my last trip to the dollar store?    Well, I went back and found a few other gems.

More glassware that will be transformed into smaller versions of the hurricane lamps:

Also, gearing up for Fall, I found these lovely darlings:

Speaking of the William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs, I finally found something to put in them:

Peach Pits!  Two summers ago, we had a bumper crop of peaches from our peach tree in the back yard.  I spent quite a bit of time scrubbing the pits and drying them out.  I wasn't sure what I was going to be using them for, but I loved the color and texture that they had.  They'll add a lot to the Fall mantlescape.

Just look at all that texture:

Also, look at what a difference a change of lighting makes.  Who knew peach pits could be interesting?

Little Pirates are Gross

"Gentlemen; m'lady. This is the day you will always remember as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!"

This boy is a natural born pirate.  He does way more work coming up with imaginative ways to get out of trouble and work than if he just did what he had been told to do in the first place.

Case in point:

We thought we had gotten past all the woes of potty training a while ago, but a new issue has cropped up.  The boy has been stopping up the toilet by using wads and wads of toilet paper.  I threatened to start deducting from his allowance if he did it again.  Lo and behold, there was no more stoppage of the plumbing.  I patted myself on the back on a parenting job well done.  Yeah.

How he got around it:

We found the trash can full of (used) toilet paper.  The little pirate filled the trash can with copious amounts of the toilet paper.  Icky, but at least the plumbing is not stopped up anymore.  Little pirates are gross. 

I am so going to use this blog as blackmail later on when he starts dating.  Mommies can use Pirate Ethics too!

Give A Lamp A New Life

Everyone makes bad decisions on decorating once in a while.  One of my worst was made almost 14 years ago.  I purchased some basic brass lamps for our bedroom and over the years have come to loathe them.  My first instinct was to throw them in the trash and go out and buy new ones.  Then I came to my senses.  The lamps are in perfect working order, so what could I do to make them look better?  The answer?  PAINT!

Start with one ugly lamp that has potential and tape off the bits that you don't want painted (please ignore the kiddie basketball goal in the background):

Next, Get out some spray primer and turn it gray:

Once it dries, get out the paint that you want and paint it!  I used Rustoleum's Universal Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze.  

So how does it look now?

Look at the before and after:

And because the above photos don't do the paint color justice, look at it in the sunlight:

Isn't it amazing the difference that a little bit of paint can make?  I still have to get some lampshades to compliment the "new" lamps.  The old ones are hideous and have been very abused.  Once I get the new shades the lamps are going to be gorgeous!

Etsy Treasury

Has today been a good day for you?  It has for me.  Some of my Cashmere fiber was listed in an Etsy Treasury!  It's always a good day when your products are listed in a Treasury. 

Have a Safe and Happy Weekend!

Dollar Store Fun

 I've seen the very cool William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs all over the blogs that I read and thought that I would give them a try.  So off I went to the Dollar Tree to gather my supplies.  I've become an addict of The Dollar Tree.   There are so many great things to be had at this store.

This is what I ended up with for four bucks:

This was such an easy project.  Glue the candlestick to the hurricane vase (using a glue that dries clear of course) and you're done!  I'm going to cut two round felt circles to place in the bottom to protect the glass, but I have not had time to do that yet.  I have yet to fill them or find a permanent home for them, but didn't they turn out great?  Four Dollars.  Wow.

What Not To Bring To A Consignment Sale

While at the Children's consignment sale yesterday, I was working at a table checking items in to be sold.  There are two piles that these get sorted into: accepted and rejected.  Most of the items that go into the rejected pile have the usual stains or tears.  No big deal, everyone of us that have children has some of their clothing that has these.  We don't take these to be resold and we don't think anything about them really when they come in with the rest of the stuff.  It's so easy to miss a stain.  I did it too.  I had no idea a stain was on that shirt.  We just took it out of my pile and didn't think about it again.

What does get talked about though are some of the oddball things.  Someone tried to sell a half used bottle of baby powder. Another person tried to sell a "vintage" crib toy that was yellowed and OLD.  I know, I had a crib toy just like it when I was a baby.  Not to say I'm old, of course, just "vintage".  In another ten years I'll be an antique and so will that crib toy.  It was similar to this one, but older and very yellowed with age:

There's no new mother that I know that would buy the one that was brought in, not one.


How much does it say about the economy these days that someone would bring in to sell a half empty bottle of baby powder and an ancient crib toy? 

Of course, those are nothing compared to the used and uncleaned potty chair that I saw brought in to a sale one year.  ICK!

The Magic of Blocking

Want to see an example of the Magic of Blocking?

Here's a before pic while Summerflies (Ravelry link) was on the needles:

Now check it out after it's been blocked:

Now do you believe in the Magic of Blocking?  Yep, thought so.


This was such a lovely little knit.  It's quick, never boring and turned out just right.  Just think, some dude decided that he didn't really like the dark green sweater that his Aunty gave him and donated it to Goodwill as soon as her back was turned.  A few months later and it now looks like this:

I love recycling!  And you know what?  This lovely shawl cost me about $1.00 total, maybe.  I still have a mountain of this yarn left over.   How cool is that?

The only modification that I made was due to the size of the yarn.  I went up to a size 10 in order to get gauge.  That's it, no other mods to see here folks, move along.

By the way, I will not be home much this week due to working the children's consignment sale so there may not be a lot of posts.  Please be patient with me, I'm trying to help a lot of needy children get set up for the winter!